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Saturday, August 25, 2012

The Oldest Gay Couple in History, (together since 2400 B.C.)

Niankhkhum and Khnumhotep

We all know a few dried up old queens, but these two manicurists top them all. Niankhkhum and Khnumhotep were found buried in the same tomb back in 1964. The imagery in the tomb depicts the two men in poses almost identical to male-female couples in other tombs of that periods. Of course, the straight Egyptologists call it "The Tomb of the Brothers" which is just another attempt to deny the existence of homos in history. Come on, the two men are depicted as a couple, hugging and kissing, and they were manicurists! What more evidence do you need? I guess they didn't find any dusty bottles of poppers and lube in the tomb?

Here's an interesting article from The Dallas Morning News.

Evidence of gay relationships exists as
early as 2400 B.C.

By John McCoy Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News

Gay people can be found throughout recorded history,
and the stereotypes about them may have been around just as long, Egyptologist Greg
Reeder said in a speech in Dallas this weekend.
His proof: the tomb of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. The
two men were royal court manicurists who lived about 2400 B.C. in the ancient
Egyptian city of Saqqara and were buried together much like a married couple.
"People laugh when you say manicurists," Mr.
Reeder, contributing editor to the Egyptology journal KMT , said Saturday night
after a speech to local members of the American Research Center in Egypt.
Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep's tomb was discovered
by archaeologists in 1964 and initially presented a puzzle to scholars.
Were the men - depicted nose to nose in a close embrace -
relatives or close friends? The scholarly literature often refers to them as
twins or brothers, and the site has become known as the Tomb of the Brothers.
But Mr. Reeder thinks there was more going on. He noted
that images of the two men are strikingly similar to those of male-female
married couples on other tombs of the era.

Niankhkhnum had a wife, who is depicted sitting behind
him in a banquet scene in the tomb, but her image was almost totally erased
during ancient times for unknown reasons, he said. In other scenes, Khnumhotep
occupies the place normally associated with wives. And in some hieroglyphs,
Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep's names are strung together in a word play that
could mean "joined in life and joined in death."
Mr. Reeder's conclusion: "Same-sex desire existed
just behind the ideal facade constructed by the ancients."
The Research Center is a nonprofit group that sponsors
expeditions to Egypt. Its North Texas chapter holds monthly talks at Southern
Methodist University, but Saturday's talk was sexier than the average academic
discussion, members said.
"We try to get as wide a spectrum of new and
unusual topics as possible," said the chapter's president, Dr. Clair
Ossian. Mr. Reeder also recited an ancient tale - probably intended at this
time to be humorous-of a homosexual liaison between the gods Horus and Seth,
producing a male pregnancy that shocked the other gods.
It's often difficult to find the right words to talk
about sexuality in ancient times, Mr. Reeder noted.
" "Gay' is too loaded. "Homosexual' is
too modern; so you have to speak in terms of their relationship to one
another," he said.
Taking a page from the late Yale University historian
John Boswell, Mr. Reeder uses the phrase "same-sex desire." Dr.
Boswell studied medieval brotherhood rituals and argued that some were akin to
same- sex unions or marriages.
Not much else is known about the two Egyptian
manicurists, whose profession is represented by a hieroglyph of an animal paw
with claws outstretched, Mr. Reeder said. He figures
Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep - listed in the hieroglyphics as "royal
confidants" - occupied a privileged position, one of the few people who
could actually touch the pharaoh.
Very few people of that era got tombs built in their
honor, and it usually took a favor from the pharaoh or a religious leader to
get one, Dr. Ossian noted.
"Tombs were horrifically expensive," he
said.